With progress and development in the field of electronics; there has also arisen a demand for greater rapidity in all fields and the field of silver halide photographic processing is no exception.
In particular, the need for rapid processing has greatly increased in the development processing of sheet-shaped photographic materials such as photographic materials for the graphic arts, X-ray photographic materials, photographic materials for scanners, photographic materials for CRT image recording and the like.
Furthermore, rapid development processing has the advantage that with more rapid development processing, smaller tank capacities are required to develop a unit quantity of photographic material in a unit time, and hence smaller automatic processor may be employed. Rapid development processing is therefore of great importance.
However, with the increase in the development processing speed, more often a problem occurs in that sensitizing dyes contained in silver halide photographic materials do not elute during processing, leaving the inside of the photographic materials discolored (so-called residual coloration) or a problem occurs in that sensitizing dyes are delayed in desorption from silver halide grains, deteriorating photographic properties (e.g., inhibition of development, fixation and bleach).
Various approaches for eliminating residual coloration are known. For example, Research Disclosure, No. 20733, vol. 207, Jul. 1981, discloses a method which comprises incorporating a water-soluble stilbene compound or a nonionic surface active agent or a mixture thereof into a developer, a method which comprises processing a photographic element which has been developed, bleached and fixed with an oxidizing agent to destroy dyes, and a method which comprises using a persulfate bath as a bleaching bath. However, these methods are not sufficiently effective to eliminate much residual coloration. Further, these methods do not positively accelerate desorption and elution of sensitizing dyes. These methods are not suitable particularly for rapid processing.
Methods which comprise the use of an additive for processing solutions as disclosed in JP-A-64-4739, JP-A-64-15734, JP-A-1-9451, JP-A-1-35440, JP-A-1-21444, JP-A-1-35441, and JP-A-1-159645 (the term "JP-A" as used herein means an "unexamined published Japanese patent application") are effective. However, these methods do not necessarily provide satisfactory results.
On the other hand, methods which comprise the use of an additive for destroying the association of sensitizing dyes as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,906,553 are excellent. In particular, a method as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,906,553 is very effective. However, these methods tend to have weaker effects on aged processing solutions or processing solutions which have been used for running processing.